A Multitude of Casualties
by theUglySpirit
Summary: COMPLETE. Curly, fresh out of the reformitory, follows Tim around while Tim collects on debts for Buck. Copious cussing, drug references, Ben Hur references, and general bad behavior.
1. Chapter 1

S.E. Hinton owns the Shepard boys. The story title and the song "Cattle and The Creeping Things" come from the album "Separation Sunday" by The Hold Steady.

**A Multitude of Casualties**

_He said: I got thru the part about the exodus. Up to then I only knew it was a movement of the people, but if small town cops are like swarms of flies and if blackened foil is like boils and hail, then I'm pretty sure we've been thru this before_. – The Hold Steady, "Cattle And The Creeping Things"

Fucker's just pushing his eggs around on his plate like it's some kind of Zen garden. Can't tell what he's looking at, if anything. He's scowling, so it can't be that waitress' pretty ass. That brings a smile to my face every time we come in here. "And what do you need today, honey?" she asks me, and all I can think is, "your ass. Right here. In my lap". Damn.

Damn. I finished my food Christ-know-how-long ago. We're going to grow old and die here if he keeps playing with those eggs. "Tim, can I have your eggs?"

He slides his plate over to me and suddenly gets inspired. "Hurry the hell up, Curly. We got shit to do."

I had a social worker in the JDC who had one of those Zen gardens on his desk- you know, one of those little trays of sand with the little Barbie rake. You're supposed to push the sand around with the rake, he said, and just concentrate on that until you zone out or something. I couldn't do it. I'd end up writing my name in the sand or thinking about scorpions and camels and whatever the fuck else lives in the desert. And I always dumped a bunch of sand over the side and onto his desk. You could see that social worker trying to keep his cool, but I could tell I irritated the Zen right out of him.

I bet Tim couldn't do it either, get all Zen with the little garden. He's always thinking of about 40 things at once. Got eyes in the back of his head. He might be looking at those eggs, but he's seeing the plainclothes cop who just walked through the door behind him. He's watching the line cook get shifty because the guy's got a joint or two in his front pocket. He's probably watching that waitress' ass, too. There has to be some room for joy inside that head of his.

Done with Tim's eggs. He pays up and we leave. I try to act cool walking past that cop. He's looking at menu, but I know he's checking us out as we walk by. You got nothing, pig. I ain't holding today, and Tim is clean. Always has been. Call him what you want, but my brother's never been a user. Barely smokes, barely drinks, told me he tried weed a couple of times and didn't like it. Fuck, who doesn't like weed? I can see it though; Tim wouldn't like anything that emptied out his mind.

It's heated up outside since we went in to the diner. Jesus, we were in there that long? These days, it never takes me longer than 10 minutes to eat. I got used to shoveling it in when I was locked up. Finish it up before the alarm, or you have to throw it. Finish it up quick, or some dickhead will take it from you. If I never get locked up again, I bet I'll still be scarffing my food down like a dog.

Damn. Where's he going? "Tim, the car's over here…"

"Leave the car. Didn't you see that cop, shithead? There's a guy down the block who owes Buck. We'll skim a little collection fee and go see Rita."

Shit. Rita. Fuckin' Rita. I guess fucking Rita's what got me into this world of hurt in the first place. First she tells me everything's okay, Curly. Go ahead and do it, Curly. Then she tells me she's knocked up. Then I go to Tim and ask him what to do about it, meaning, "How can I make this go away" and Tim says, "You take care of your kid, Daddy".

I thought maybe, when I got locked up, she'd forget about me. Shit, everyone else did. But no, she didn't forget because Tim, the big daddy of us all, is taking care of her while I'm in. I don't even know that kid's name. Well, yeah I do, but I try to make like I don't. Tim knows, though. Tim's making a play for Uncle of the Year.

I asked him once why. He just looked at me like I was high on fivers. That exact look. (I did get high on speed once, and he gave me that look when he caught up to me. And then he bounced me off the walls of our bedroom until I passed out.) It's a deceptive look- he looks at you like he's just really tired, like you've worn him out with your bullshit, but no such luck. He's got plenty of fire left in him to beat the crap out of you.

And he looked at me like that when I asked him why he was taking care of Rita's baby. "It's your baby, too, ain't it, genius? And since I find myself still taking care of you, it only stands to reason I'd also have to take care of your kid. By proxy, shithead."

By proxy. What does that even mean? Only Tim knows. Before our dad bailed and our mom divorced him, Tim went through third grade at the Catholic school. Our parents never had to pay tuition; I guess our family was like a charity case. To hear him tell it, that was the only kind of charity they showed him. Every story he's ever told me about the place ends with, "and then Sister Veronica fuckin' smacked me with that ruler…". Even with the constant threat of bodily harm hanging over him, I think Tim probably got a better education in three and a half years there than I ever did in the public school.

He'd never own up, but deep down, I know Tim is still pissed that they threw him out. It's like they turned up their noses to him- the child of the wicked divorced parents. He did all kinds of bad shit at that school: cussed at nuns, defaced books, stole peaks up girl's skirts, but they tossed him for something that was totally beyond his control. He's still pissed at ma and dad, too.

By proxy. Damn. So, by proxy, we're going to hustle up some cash and drop it on Rita and The Baby. And we're going to walk doing it because some plainclothes fucker is sniffing around the neighborhood, and Tim doesn't want him to make this car.

Suddenly, I'm thinking maybe I learned something from that social worker at JDC. He was always talking about the ABCs: antecedent, behavior, consequence. He said most people, people like me, only pay attention to the last two, and that's why our behavior never changes. But every behavior has a cause, he said, a motivation. Nobody does anything without a purpose. I've known Tim long enough to know that he's packed full of enough purpose for all of us. "Tim," I say. "Do you look after that baby because dad left us?"

He never breaks stride. Fucker almost plows me over as he turns to enter a stairwell to the apartments above the hardware store. "I look after that baby because you don't," he says. I wait for him to add "shithead" to the end of that statement, but he's hopping up the stairs two at a time.

It's then that I realize that he's enjoying this. Not pissing me off, although that might be an added bonus. No, Tim's enjoying taking care of shit. Literally, it puts a spring in his step. That's the difference between him and me, I guess. If I never had to work any harder than to roll a good, fat joint, I'd be over the goddamned moon. Tim, if he did weed, would have to be growing it himself. That would be his Zen garden and he'd be Farmer Tim. But he doesn't smoke, so he has to go looking for ways to be industrious. It's like a quest he's on: a quest for his antecedent.

We reach the top of the stairs. "Stay here. Keep a look out," he tells me and heads off down the hall. Damn. He's gonna go work some poor fucker over, and I have to stand here.

The door of the apartment opens and Tim disappears inside. He leaves the door open behind him, and I try to hear what they're saying. From the corner of my eye, I see something pass the door to the street below me. Shit. Was that the cop? Damn, I need to be sure. If I don't say anything, and we get picked up, Tim'll end me. If I say something, and it wasn't the cop, Tim'll think I'm an asshole. And he'll still end me. I head down the stairs to the doorway. The street is empty. If this was a movie, a big-ass tumbleweed would be blowing by right about now. The "Fistful of Dollars" music would be firing up, and the townspeople would all be cowering behind their closed window shades. I'm good as dead.

"Curly!" He damned-near makes me bite through my own tongue. "What the fuck?"

I want to grab him by the shoulders and shout, "How do you do that?" but I inhale slowly what may well be my last breath and say, "I seen someone go by. I came down to see who it was."

"And who was it?" He's frowning, but it's a different frown than the one he was staring down his eggs with at the diner. Tim has as many fucking frowns as Eskimos have words for snow. This one clearly reads "Curly is an idiot. I can't believe we share DNA".

"Dunno, man. Whoever it was disappeared pretty quick."

He considers this for a heartbeat, and then says, "Fuck it. I got nothing outta that old fool anyway. Blew his rent and everything else on smack. Damn. The day I pay someone to allow me the privilege of stickin' needles in my arm…" Right then, just before he takes off again on his next mission, he gives me a look, and it ain't one of his 500 frowns. It's coming from deep in his eyes, and I think I see hurt in there. I want to think he's just feeling bad about the old fucker upstairs, but I'm pretty sure he's really thinking that someday that's gonna be me.


	2. Chapter 2

SE Hinton owns the Shepard clan.

**Multitude, pt. 2**

_Well, there ain't really no more surprises/ Like a dead savior/ One that never rises. – Joseph Arthur, "Dead Savior"_

When you wake up, your hand is resting on her bare hip and your face is buried in the back of her neck. You kiss her there, more of a gentle bite, and she makes the softest, most beautiful little mmmm sound, and for that moment you are the luckiest son of a bitch in the whole round world. "Good morning, pretty girl," you say into her hair. The only real difference between men and women, you think, is that women are so pliable. They always give when you touch them. Of course, after the age of six, the only time you've really ever touched another guy was to belt him one, and they tend to stiffen up in anticipation of that. You've only ever hit a woman once, some hissing and snarling speed freak with a busted bottle who was barely woman anymore at all. More like a feral cat, and still it was like punching a pillow. What's that Einstein law- for every action there's an equal and opposite reaction? That just doesn't hold up with women's bodies.

In a room down the hall, an alarm goes off. She rolls over onto her back, stretches, and says the same words she's you've heard her say again and again since you were both fifteen: "Tim, you gotta get out of here. My dad'll kick your ass if he catches you."

You both know that's no longer true. There may have been a time when he could've done it, but Apollonia's Fisher's dad's days of ass-kicking are over and yours are in full swing. Still, you'd hate to fuck things up for Apple. The two of you have known each other since you were five. You walked her to St. Pius every day until they revoked your poor kid scholarship. Even then, you still made it your personal business to beat the bejesus out of any other boy who called her Apple. She hates her name. You found her crying on her front steps after the first day of freshman year of high school, after she'd spent all day trying to get people call her Loni and failed. "I hate it. It's a ridiculous name. I mean, Jesus, Apollonia the fuckin' patron saint of toothaches."

"And yet you remain a constant pain in my ass," you had told her, and she laughed. And it's not long after that that you start sneaking into her room on the nights when your mom is working late or your stepdad is out of his tree on scotch. She never has been and never will be your girlfriend, but she's probably your best friend. Sometimes you think, when standing in the midst of the boys who call themselves yours and run errands in your name all over the east side, that maybe she's your only friend.

You and Apple listen for her dad to sit up in bed, shuffle into his slippers, amble down the hall, and turn on the shower. That's your queue. You wink at her and she flips you the bird. Out the window you go. You don't bother walking down to the sidewalk. You just cut across her yard, then Mrs. Mulroney's yard with the Blessed Virgin in the upturned bathtub, then your own. Up the stairs and into your living room. A moment of indecision: the couch or up to the room you share with your brother? The couch. They'll all be coming down to bug you pretty soon, but at least this way you can count heads and make sure they all leave. After they're gone, you can catch a few hours of sleep. Unlike Apple's dad, nothing you do needs to get done before eleven.

Your mom emerges first. She looks at you for a second as if she maybe doesn't know who you are and then says, "Tim, you're still wearing your shoes. Get your damn shoes off of my couch".

"Yes, ma'am," you say with just a hint of sarcasm and say the words in your head, "Good morning, pretty girl". Satisfied that she has laid the shit down, she moves onto the kitchen. Your step-dad comes down next, looks at you like he wishes he didn't know you, and flips on the TV to hear the weather. He's been laying sod for three weeks, and today he's hanging over and would love to hear that there's a storm coming so he can go back to drinking or back to bed.

"No rain today, Old Man," you say. If he still had that bottle in his hand, he'd have probably beaten you with it. Instead, he cusses at you and/or the weather and heads for the kitchen to begin his customary morning bitching session about his wife's smart ass kids and bad coffee. His voice fades to the back of your head, and you start to drift off. A half hour or more passes. Your stepdad leaves, and your mom's voice jars you back to the land of the living as she comes to the bottom of the stairs and shrieks, "Angela!" up to the second story.

Angela takes her time getting downstairs. Just long enough to really start pissing your mom off. You lay in wait: Angela always has some crazy-ass question for you in the morning. Once, she asked you if you loved Apollonia. That had been a rough night already. You and Apple had both graduated from your respective high schools, and she had gotten into some business school. She'd started partying with friends there and had told you she'd been smoking weed. You tell her stuff is shit and she'd better knock it off, and that sends her into a fury. _Who the fuck do you think you are, Tim Shepard? You can't tell me what to do. Who the fuck are you to talk anyway? You've been drinking since you were twelve. No, it's not different. How is it any different? I'm not one of your little minion hoods, Tim. I don't have to do shit because you say so._ And she's right, you'd told her, _but you're rippin' high right now if you think you're better because you got your dope from the college kids and not from the hoods around here_. You'd said your "fuck you"s, and you had pulled your clothes on and left in the dark, wandered around the neighborhood for an hour kicking at things, and then went home only to have Angela start pestering you at 6:30 am about did you love Apollonia. "What the fuck, Angel? Go to school," you had told her.

This morning, you get off much easier. "Tim, you're on my book," she says. And right she is. You are laying on her copy of Silas Marner, which is probably a lot more love than Angel's been showing it. You doubt she's even cracked it open. You pull the book out from where it's slipped down between the cushions and say, "He gets the girl in the end".

"What? Shut up, Tim," she says and heads for the door, followed in short order by your mom. She pauses to say that there's still coffee and you don't reply. It's quiet for a minute and then, last and least, Curly comes scurrying down the stairs. He's missed getting a ride with mom and Angela, missed the bus, too. He's pulling on a t-shirt as he hustles down the stairs, pants still undone, feet bare. He grew taller than you while he was in the reformatory. You aren't the tallest guy in the land anyway, so you should have seen that coming, but it still trips you out a little when you see him. Height or no, he still looks like a kid. Actually, the extra inches have made him look even more like a kid than when he left. He's lanky, but there's still some baby fat left in his cheeks.

"Romeo, Romeo," he says with a grin when he sees you there on the couch, and you think: Christ, is Apple's dad the only person in this town who doesn't know about her and me? Curly says, "Tim, can you give me a ride to school?"

"How about you ditch today, kid," You tell him. "I got some shit I need to do later. Might need you." There was a time, before he got locked up, that Curly would have damned near slipped and fell over in a puddle of his own drool at a suggestion like that. Since he's been back, he's had a little more of a handle on his cool. The dopey look is still there in his eyes, but instead of Can I? Can I? Can I? He gives you a shrug and says, "All right".

"All right, then. Let me get some sleep. Give me a couple of hours, and we'll get at it. I'll get you some breakfast." He may think he's some kind of hard-ass criminal now, but you know you still got to feed him.

***

You take Curly to breakfast at a diner downtown. He plows through his plate of grease, and then sets his sights on yours. If he keeps growing like this, you think, we might as well start raising our own cattle in the backyard.

You cruise the paper while you plot out your pick-up route in your mind. Collecting for Buck is an easy gig. The ones who don't pay up to him right away are usually the stoners and are easily jostled or confused. Any of the other boys in your gang could accomplish these pick-ups handily, but then you'd have to cut them in on the collection fee. Besides, it's a nice day- a lovely day for intimidating, one might say- and it's also been a while since you've checked in on Rita and Julianne.

Something in the kitchen hits the floor and bounces a couple of times. Something metal and it sounds like the tolling of a bell. The guy in the kitchen working the grill is named Joe Tobiasson, and he's an idiot. You've sat with him in the joint a couple of times. He's damned-near smoked himself stupid, and in doing this has unwittingly turned you off of weed for all time. The guy can barely make it twenty minutes without a drag to calm him down. He's always high, which makes him worthless in a fight, but he's like a canary in a coal mine when you're on the lookout for cops. So, when the door to the diner opens and shuts behind you, and Joe starts to get jumpy, you know something's up. You raise your eyes from the newspaper and meet his. He gives you a little nod, and you find yourself impressed at how subtle he does it. He must be really lit.

You fold the paper and lay it back on the counter. "Hurry the hell up, Curly. We got shit to do."

You step out into the bright light of the late morning, holding the door for your little brother, who is wiping his mouth with the back of his wrist and blinking. You got here in Buck's car, but being that it's a condition of your latest probation that you not have contact with him or his so-called establishment, you figure you probably shouldn't be seen leaving in it. It's only a couple of blocks to your first appointment anyway: some dope fiend named Earl who lives in a second floor room above a hardware store. He probably knows you're coming and yet he probably doesn't have the money. He's got debts and bills to pay all over town, but rather than get a grip on his shit, he's resigned himself to take the beating. You wonder to yourself, "who lives like that?" and then you start thinking about the baby- your niece- who you support because your brother can't or won't, and the girl who fucks you but will never invite you in through the front door to meet her father, and the cop who's following you (or Curly) because you just can't quite seem to step on to this side of the law.

Curly is wandering in the direction of Buck's car. You reach out and yank him toward you, like you're taking a disobedient dog for a walk. "Leave the car…"


	3. Chapter 3

I rewrote some of this chapter because there were things that bugged me. Didn't feel it was as tight as the first two. Would greatly appreciate any constructive criticism. I'm a big girl. I can handle it.

S.E. Hinton owns the Shepard boys.

**A Multitude of Casualties, con't.**

…_Jackie Onassis said that it ain't safe for Catholics yet/ Think about what they pulled on Kennedy/ and then think about his security/ Then think about what they might try to pull on you and me. –The Hold Steady, "Don't Let Me Explode"_

Tim finally scares up some cash from a guy hanging out in a TV repair shop, and we head back after Buck's car in the heat of the early afternoon. I would have rather walked to Rita's. She lives a fair stretch from the diner. Maybe I'd have gotten lucky and someone would've run me over on the way.

I sit on the hood of the car in front of Rita's house, pretending to clean my fingernails with a knife. He told me I didn't have to come up to the door, and I don't know if that makes me feel better or worse. I'm digesting what he told me about the deal he's made with Rita, and I don't know if that makes me feel better or worse either.

Back in the diner parking lot, inside the car, I asked him why again. "For Christ's sake, why do we have to go see Rita?"

"You don't," he tells me. "Ain't got nothing to do with you anymore. She and I made a business agreement together. Give me a cigarette."

Tim mostly smokes when he drives. He looks cool as hell doing it, and he probably knows it, too: Exhaling smoke like he's some kind of dragon, Roger Miller on the radio singing him his own personal soundtrack, it's like he's enveloped in the dust in the spotlight of the movie house projector. Think of Charleton Heston- no fuck him- think Ramon Navarro with a scar racing his chariot in "Ben Hur", but in slow motion, wearing jeans and a black t-shirt, and smoking Lucky Strikes. He looks so tough, I bet he'd sooner let Jesus Christ himself drown than put down that cigarette.

The lighter pops out. I light up, take a drag, and then hand it over to Tim. He inhales, exhales out the window, and continues: "She came to see me while you were in. She must've been about due, she was about as round as she is tall. And tripping out because she can't raise this kid, and what people say about her to her grandma, and this kid's never going to have a life, shaking and crying. She wanted to give the kid to Ma and Donnie to raise."

He pauses to look at me out of the corner of his eye, making sure I'm catching the irony in that. Yeah, I get it all right. He continues.

"You know, Curly, there might have been a time when growing up in our house was in the ballpark of sane, but that time's long gone. You probably don't even remember."

I don't. All I remember is Ma being married to Donnie, and the fights, and the broken shit all over. Christmas gifts from the Catholic Charities and Tim feeding our sister and me cereal night after night for dinner.

There are reminders of the "ballpark of sane", as he calls it. Our mom has a picture in a frame on her dresser. She has a few pictures up there- the three of us kids together in a park, Angela in a Raggedy Ann Halloween costume, me in the bathtub. I fuckin' hate that one. Couldn't she love a picture of me where I'm wearing clothes? In amongst them all is a picture of Ma and Tim. It's his first communion, so he must be about seven years old. If you can imagine my brother- with his low top Chucks, jailhouse tattoos on his fingers and a blade in his back pocket- at seven with a crew cut and wearing a little suit. It should be fucking hilarious, but every time I see it I feel like that picture's reached out and smacked me upside the head. I have to stand there and stare at it. It's obviously Tim- he ain't really changed that much. He and Ma are standing on the front porch of the house. She's smiling to beat the band. Tim's more smirking than smiling, but his eyes are happy. They're both so goddamned happy. I don't remember things ever being like that.

"So, I told her no," he says. "It was a stupid fucking idea. If she wants her baby to have a life like she says, she needs to keep it as far away from our house as she can. I told her if she'd do that, I'd toss a little cash her way when I could. That's our deal, me and Rita."

So now, standing outside of Rita's house, watching as Tim at raps at the screen door, I can't help but be a little pissed about his "deal". I wanted him to make it all go away, and instead he has tied both of us to it forever.

Rita comes to the door with the baby in her arms. She's a short girl, and she doesn't look nearly big enough to be wielding a four month old human. From here, she still looks good, I got to admit. Maybe a little more padding around the middle, probably darker circles underneath her eyes. I ain't going closer for a better look though.

The baby- her name is Julianne, my brother has informed me- is sitting up straight and alert on Rita's hip. She flaps her arms and squeals trying to get Tim's attention. He sticks his tongue out at her and then squares his shoulders and reverts to being Tim. He fishes the money out of the front pocket of his jeans. They haven't said much up to now, and when he asks her if there's anything they need, Rita shrugs. Her eyes are glued to me.

"Why does he have to be such an asshole?" I hear her say, and Tim just grins and shakes his head without looking up from the bills he's counting out. Thanks for taking up for me there, Big Brother.

Behind me, I hear gravel crunch underneath tires. The quiet squeal of brakes on the decline. I look over my shoulder, and damn, it's that plainclothes bastard from the diner. He's parked his car at the other end of the block behind us and now he's out and heading up the sidewalk towards me. I turn away from him again and cough loudly. Tim has already seen him and said his farewells to Rita and baby. He's hiking just quickly enough down the front walk towards the car to make me nervous. The cop stops, trying to head him off, at Rita's gate but just Tim blows on by.

"Charles Shepard?" The cop says.

"Nope," Tim replies and gives him a quick and very fake little smile that has "sucks to be you" written all over it. And then like a light, he turns that smile off again as he locks eyes with me. I duck my head to avoid looking at the cop as I come around the passenger side. By the time I'm in, Tim already has the engine fired up and the car in gear. He actually signals as he pulls away from the curb. I know that can't be good. One a normal day, Tim drives like he's above traffic laws. Like everyone will just know to yield to him. I get the feeling that very quickly it's going to suck to be me.

We drive in silence to the intersection and then he asks, "What the fuck did you do, Charles Shepard?

I don't know. What didn't I do? I've only been out for two weeks, but I haven't exactly been keeping all those promises I made to the social worker at the JDC. But what the hell, a plainclothes cop? I don't have a clue what I might have done to bring that down.

"Charles Fuckin' Shepard," Tim is grumbling. It's Charles Francis Shepard. Junior. Tim has called me Charles Fucking Shepard for years, and normally I think it's pretty damned funny. Right now, though, I know if I dared to look at him, I'd be able to see the veins in his neck. He's twitching his nose and cracking the knuckles on his right hand before popping the lighter in. "Why is there a cop following us around town looking for Charles Shepard, Curly?"

I think about suggesting maybe he was looking for Charles Shepard, Sr., but decide that would probably be the end of me. Against my better judgment, I begin to list off to Tim everything I can think of that I've done when he hasn't been around. Father, forgive me for I have sinned: "I skipped school a couple of times last week. Counting today, that's three times. I scored some weed off of Pete Decker…" I pause to give Tim a chance to say, "Decker? Haven't I told you to keep the fuck away from that dipshit?" He keeps it to himself, and I continue, "I lifted a pack of smokes from the DX, I've been in Buck's a couple of times, me and Regan climbed up on the roof of the post office and threw eggs at cars…"

"Oooh, I think that's a federal offense," he breaks in, and I'm relieved. Forced to look over my resume from the last two weeks, I'm not particularly impressed. I mean, Tim's not exactly changing the world by collecting gambling money for Buck, but I sound like a goddamned fourth grader. "That's it, Curly? Unless Decker is an undercover, too, now, none of that shit should add up to…"

"…jack shit, I know." I also know that this is probably the first time in fifteen years that I've interrupted Tim. My mind is racing as fast as his now, and neither of us has a clue. I turn around to see if the plainclothes guy is following us. I'm both relieved and perplexed that he seems to have disappeared. "He's gone, man. Hey, maybe he's just a truant officer."

"Nah, I know all of them. Christ, one comes looking for you or Angel at least once a week, and Ma won't even talk to them anymore."

I find the visual image of Tim talking to the truant officers pretty fucking funny. He says, "Yeah, laugh, genius. I'll have plenty of practice in before your kid is old enough to start skipping school."

That shuts me up. I've put a lot of energy into avoiding this baby. The thought that she will someday be old enough to go to school- and ditch it- is like a kick in the head. She's here forever, and my brother is determined to be part of all of those precious Shepard family moments: her first fight on the playground, first visit from the truant officer, the first time she comes home loaded. Damn. The words just tumble out before I can catch them, "What are we doing, Tim?"

"We're taking the car back to Buck's and laying low for a couple of hours. We should probably go home. When school gets out, maybe you should head over to Curtis' turf and shoot some baskets with what's-his-name. Just don't be around here for a while."

No, Tim, I think. Not "what are we doing" tonight. I mean "what are we doing" in general? Like forever? Please don't tell me this is it. I need to know what's hanging over us. I don't always want to be the dumbass kid egging cars from the roof.

I've always looked up to Tim because he's my brother and I know he'll always take care of me. Problem is I've hated every damned decision he's made in the name of brotherly love since I got back from JDC. Every time it seems like we get to walk off into the sunset, the fucking sun just comes up again the next morning and it all starts all over again.


	4. Chapter 4

SE Hinton owns those darned Shepard boys.

A Multitude of Casualties, pt. 4

_Collisions came as consequence/ Watching the scene after the accident/ Mixed-up words, find out what she meant/ Witness the scene after the accident. – Sons and Daughters, "Split Lips"_

Rita puts the baby down and sinks back into her grandmother's glider. First she doesn't see him in three weeks, then he shows up with Curly in tow, and then he sees the man walking up the street towards them says, "Shit, Rita. That's a cop. I got to go." She pulls her knees up to her chest and rocks the glider into motion, a steady rhythm to the words in her head, "Don't take Tim. Don't take Tim…"

Rita had never felt entirely sane in Tim's presence. Curly was cute, and just looking at him made her feel giddy, but Tim was something else entirely. He rarely smiled, and often seemed immediately regretful about it when he did. She couldn't read Tim, whereas Curly's every emotion shot out of his mouth and the rest of his being like static electricity. Tim seemed to be forever anticipating something. Rita always got the feeling that at any moment he might explode, but she didn't dare try to predict with what emotion.

When she was going with Curly, she'd only met Tim a few times, and so hunting him down when she was eight months pregnant and Curly was gone to the JDC took just about every ounce of nerve she had. She knew her plan to give the baby to Curly and Tim's mother to raise was a stupid one, but Curly talked about his brother like he was all-knowing, and she wanted to coax him into coming up with a better idea. When he told her, without ever really looking in her direction at all, that he'd help her with money if she'd just keep that baby the hell out of his mom and stepdad's grasp, she'd gone along with it, but she never really expected to see him again. He didn't come to the hospital when Julianne was born (none of the Shepards did), nor did he show up at the house for a couple of weeks after. And then, one day, he knocked on her door.

Tim Shepard had stood on her doorstep cracking his neck as if he was expecting a fight to break out. In his arm, he held a paper bag from the grocery store, and Rita almost cried when she recognized the smell of oranges. "This stuff's for you," he'd said, pushing the bag at her. "Here- there's about thirty bucks. You can get whatever you get the baby with that." Rita had stared stupefied into the bag for a moment: oranges, coffee, and canned soup. She had a dresser full of blankets and clothes and toys for the baby. She would never deny that her family and her grandmother's church friends had been very generous, but it was the oranges almost brought her to tears. Tim was only person who had brought something just for her.

Finally, she asked the question that everyone else had seemed to want her to ask for the past two weeks, "Do you want to see her?"

"Who?" Tim had said, and then, "Oh, no. I don't have to. That's all right." So, he didn't officially meet Julianne until two weeks later, when he reappeared with more groceries and forty dollars.

Rita's grandmother was home that time. Tim had stepped inside the house, and while Rita went to get Julianne from the back bedroom, her grandma eyed him with a mixture of curiosity and contempt. When Rita returned, her grandma asked her, "Is this the father?"

Rita could feel herself turning red and hot. She'd wanted to die right there on the living room floor, but Tim had smiled slightly, looked Grandma in the eye, and said, "No, ma'am. I'm the uncle."

Her grandmother's annoyance seemed to inspire Tim, because after that he showed up every two weeks, like clockwork, money in hand. Sometimes he only stayed for a minute, and he rarely acknowledged the baby more than to wink in her direction if she squeaked at him first, but what Rita knew was distraction in his nature was mistaken for shyness by her grandmother, and Grandma was charmed.

Tim had rattled the screen door one day when Julianne was almost four months old and Rita was about at the end of her rope. Julianne was teething, the house was a mess, and she hadn't had so much as a minute to herself in days. Her grandmother had invoked the "This Is What You Get for Being a Whore" defense and disappeared to another relative's house where she could watch television in peace. Rita pounced on the opportunity, when Tim actually moved into the center of the living room and seemed confused that Julianne was nowhere to be seen, to ask him for a favor. "Tim, could you do something for me? She's asleep in the back and I just need to take a shower. I haven't had a shower in forever."

"Sure. That's all right."

She felt the need to continue rambling her justifications. "She'll stay asleep. Just come to the door and yell at me if she wakes up. I just…I just…"

"Yeah, it's fine," he'd said, took off his jacket, picked up the newspaper from her Grandma's chair, and sat down on the sofa. Rita almost ran for the bathroom. She stayed in the shower until the hot water ran out, letting it wash the smell of milk off of her breasts, and imagining that it could burn the stretch marks off of her belly. When she finally emerged, she could hear voices on the other side of the door. It took her a second to realize that only one was actually speaking, and the other was her daughter's coo.

"Nah, I don't think so," Tim answered Julianne, who cooed again. "Nope, not going to happen. I'm a mean son of a bitch. You don't want nothing to do with a guy like me."

Overcome with curiosity, Rita dressed as quickly as she could and exited the bathroom still combing out her hair. In spite of Rita's promises to Tim, Julianne had awakened, but rather than call for back-up, Tim had moved himself and the newspaper into the back bedroom and was sitting on the bed reading and chatting with the baby, who remained in her crib. "Look at this," he referred to the newspaper. "Says someone over in Brumly is giving away puppies. That's what you need, a puppy. Not some greasy hood like me."

Rita finally spoke up from the doorway. "No, Uncle Tim, she does not need a puppy. Don't you go sneaking one of those in with the groceries one of these times."

"Aw, come on, Mama," He winked at her and then shook his head at Julianne. "Mama says no puppies. How about a kitty then? Are there any kitties available for adoption?"

Rita stepped forward and swatted the paper down from in front of his face. "I swear to Christ, Tim, if you bring anything with four legs into this house…"

The possibility of a challenge brought a little smile to Tim's lips, and he spoke again to Julianne: "Your mama's getting kind of lippy, little girl. You think I can take her?" And for a split second it seemed to Rita that the whole world stopped. She didn't move. She couldn't. She just stood there and stared at him until her stomach began to churn and her eyes welled up with tears. At that moment, she would have given anything for him to have been Curly, or at least for Curly to have been just a little more like him. The tears began to tumble down and her hand flew up to her face to meet them.

"Aw, come on, Rita…" Tim said quietly, almost pleading with her. He bit his bottom lip and shifted on the bed, almost as if he was contemplating whether or not to run. Instead, he took her by the arm and pulled her to him and kissed her. His arms wrapped around her tiny frame and his hands spread across her back, like he intended to cage her. It seemed like they kissed for hours, her standing between his knees as he sat on the bed, before he whispered to her, "What about a bird?"

"What?" she pulled away, confused, and he was grinning at her. That rare grin was like a gift.

"Birds only have two legs. I'll bring her a big old goose or a chicken to protect her. Chickens can be mean fuckers."

"That's what's been going through your head all this time? Chickens?" She couldn't help but be a little offended.

He pushed a lock of hair back out of her face. He was still smiling slightly, but she could tell that his eyes had already moved on. "I guess. You going to be okay now? I got to get going."  
Rita had tried not to show her disappointment. It wasn't like he was going to stick around just because she wanted him to anyway. He and Curly had that much in common. "Yeah, I'll be okay."

"Okay. I'll see you in a couple then." He stood up and tapped her on the head gently with the folded newspaper, like she imagined he would do with his sister. He was nearly out of the front door and gone before Rita heard him call back to her, "And next time I'm bringing a chicken."

For the next few hours, and then weeks until Tim finally showed up again, Rita was far from okay. Miles from it. The warm, squishy feeling in her stomach escalated into full-on anxiety. Every time the wind blew the screen door, she jumped and prayed it was him. She calculated the distance between his house and hers and debated whether it would look too weird if she were to take Julianne on a walk and just happen to pass by. In the end, she decided against that idea mostly because she was terrified of his mother and Angela. The first week passed, and she told herself he was just busy doing whatever it was that a guy like Tim did. He would come the second week because he always did. And then, he didn't. And then, she heard from a friend that Curly was out, and the wave of nausea that hit her was worse than any she had experienced in that first trimester with Julianne.

She knew what happened now: Tim turned the care of Julianne back over to Curly, and Rita never saw either of them again. Curly had been gone almost from the moment the words, "I'm pregnant" came out of her mouth. He'd been pretty stoned when she'd told him, and from the look on his face she had to wonder if he'd thought he was hallucinating it all. Rita had never been a very decisive person; she was happy to go along and experiment with whatever her friends were doing be it grass or booze or hanging out with the wilder boys from the downtown gangs. In that moment with Curly, though, something else took over. Maybe it was all hormonal, but it was determined. Rita had decided then that Curly was going to get what he had coming. Soon after, Curly had fallen victim to his own idiocy: he'd tried to hold up a liquor store and failed miserably. The time without him had begun as a strange quiet, changed to a peaceful calm, and took a turn in the direction of pure bliss when Tim showed up and took over. No way in hell, Rita had decided after Tim left that night three weeks ago, was she ever going back.

"Well, and now there's no going back," she tells herself as she lets the glider come to a stop. She has set it all in motion and now she has only to convince herself that the thing with Tim was nothing more to her than just a thing. Tim can be collateral damage, she doesn't care. It will be worth it as long as Curly goes away for good.


	5. Chapter 5

SE Hinton owns the Shepard boys.

**A Multitude of Casualties, pt. 5**

_I told you to be patient/ I told you to be fine/ I told you to be balanced/ I told you to be kind/ Now all your love is wasted?/ Then who the hell was I?- Bon Iver, "Skinny Love"_

"So she really is Curly's baby?" You don't know what it is that Apollonia can't wrap her head around: that someone would do it with Curly? That it's not really your baby? Whatever her reasons, she is obsessed, and she grills you about it whenever she gets the chance.

"Yep, sure is." The two of you are sitting on your front step, passing a cigarette back and forth between you, waiting for Apple's date to pick her up. Two houses down, her old man is taking an eon to fix a screen on their front porch and is casting you dangerous glances.

"What's she look like?" Apple asks.

"Who?" You know who. You just like to watch Apple get pissed off.

"Christ, Tim. The baby. What does the spawn of Curly look like?"

"Well, she's kind of little and bald," you say. You don't look at the baby much when you're over there. Mostly you look at the floor or for the closest possible escape route. Sometimes you look at Rita. You could tell Apple all about the carpet in Rita's grandma's living room, if she wanted to know about it. You glance over at Apple, blowing smoke, and it dawns on you that you rarely notice what she looks like either. Maybe it's because you knew her before she ever had tits, or before you cared whether she had them or not, or maybe because you've gotten so used to seeing her either in her uniform or in nothing at all. Tonight, she is wearing a sweater set like every secular girl in Tulsa, and it's got you kind of mesmerized. It looks so soft that you have to keep commandeering the cigarette to stop yourself before you reach out and pet her.

Apple seems to accept that you are hopeless as far as details about the baby. She asks with a little venom in her voice, "And Curly's never even seen her?"

"Nope." You're pretty sure it wouldn't count that he saw her from a distance for the first time today.

"God, he's such an asshole."

You stretch back on the stairs and smile at her. "So does that make me the handsome prince, then, for helping her out?"

"No, Tim. I think you probably taught him everything he knows." You know that if her dad wasn't still screwing around in the yard, she would have scratched your belly or at least poked you with her red-tipped nails. Instead, she flicks ashes at you.

A car pulls up to the curb in front of Apple's house. She waves, and it pulls up a few more yards until it's in front of yours. The driver gets out, looking perplexed, and you note with satisfaction that you could easily whip his ass.

"Well, you two have a lovely evening, then," you say to her as she stands, leaving you with the cigarette.

"Whatever. You, too, Shepard."

"I'll do my damnedest," you reply and watch her walk away towards the car, where The Date is holding the passenger door open for her. "Hey, Loni," you hear him say, and you can't help but smile at her persistence finally paying off with someone. As she steps into the car, his hand grazes her back and that magical-looking sweater. You hate to admit that it bugs the shit out of you that he gets to touch that sweater, even when you've already touched everything else.

Apple and her date pull away. From inside the house behind you something shatters and Angela starts ripping into Curly. You decide to cut your losses for the evening and go for a drive. Later, you'll hit Bucks and play some pool. Rally the troops. Have a couple of drinks and maybe find a girl who can't stop looking at you, rather than through you.

You head down to the curb and get into your car without ever making direct eye contact with it. Your car is a never-ending source of frustration. You blame it on the car, anyway. Somehow you have managed to become the only guy on the east side of Tulsa who is not some kind wizard mechanic. You can jimmy any lock, disassemble and clean a gun, even manufacture a pretty nice pipe bomb, but you can barely keep that son-of-a-bitch Chrysler on the road. Whenever you get challenged to a drag race, you have to borrow a car from one of your gang. You can pass it off to them like it's some kind of privilege that they should let you drive their cars, but secretly it pisses you off. Whenever you go collecting for Buck, you take his car because…well, mostly because it's a T-Bird, and you like it better, and Buck doesn't care if you drive it. You think someday you would like to have a T-Bird like that, and then you think you would probably just drive that into the ground, too.

The engine reluctantly fires up, and something deep within squeals. Your near-empty reservoir of mechanical knowledge tells you to turn up the radio and ignore it. You pull out into the street without purpose and cruise around listening to the radio as the shadows from the setting sun grow longer and finally engulf the downtown streets. At last, Dusty Springfield's taunting becomes too much ("Yeah, yeah, I get it. I don't own you."), and you stop the car in front of a corner grocery. The elderly man behind the counter frowns, eyeing you with suspicion as you enter and then with confusion as you load up a basket with oranges and canned soup and pay for it like a regular citizen.

The light from Rita's open living room window silhouettes a large cat sitting on the sill. You say "chhtt!" to the cat and it makes a similar sound in reply before jumping down and scurrying off into the peonies. Thanks to him, you don't even have to knock. Rita comes to the door, looking surprised to see you again so soon. She peers around you suspiciously, probably checking to see if you brought Curly this time.

"All by myself," you tell her. "I just wanted to make you that cop didn't give you any shit after we left."

She shakes her head. "No. What was that all about, Tim?"

"Nothing for you to worry about. It's all right." You've never pegged Rita for being particularly sharp. She did get knocked up by Curly, after all, but right now she's seeing right through you and the surprise you feel is strangely pleasant.

"You're full of shit, Tim," she says rather cautiously, as if she's trying the smart ass thing on for size. "Do you want to come in?"

The baby is asleep somewhere and the front room is lit by a single lamp and the flickering television. Rita gestures for you to sit down and asks if you want a drink. "Sure," You tell her. Rita is such a small person; it always kind of amuses you to think of her doing grown up things like getting drinks or giving birth.

Watching her pad away on bare feet, you admit to yourself for the first time tonight what you're doing here. All evening long, you've tried to be on autopilot: get off the porch so nobody sees that Apple has left you alone, don't go inside because you'll have to listen to your brother and sister fight and probably have to break it up, don't go to Buck's because you'll find nothing there but the weight left by Dally's absence. Shit, Curly does this all the time- lives his life just wandering from joint to joint, girl to girl, petty crime to petty crime. Occasionally, you or your mom or a PO drops down from above to whack him with the proverbial bat and set him on a different course. He lays it all in the hands of his various higher powers. You have tried all night to convince yourself that some kind of divine intervention has cracked you over the head and brought you here, but the truth is your intentions are far from divine, and they have been yours all along.

In the minute or two that Rita's gone in the kitchen, you calculate exactly how it's going to happen: She returns and when she sets the glass down on the end table beside you, you take her by the wrist and jerk her into your lap. One hand is up her skirt and gripping her tiny ass, the other slides up her arm and around the back of her neck. You probably don't need to hold her so tightly; she isn't resisting. Not until you try to touch her breasts. She pushes you hand back down and says, "Don't. They'll leak." You have no idea what the hell she's talking about, so you just go with it. You stand up, pulling her up with you, kissing her ever harder as you push her towards the back of the house.

*

When you pull away from her, you realize that the camisole that she refused to take off is soaking wet. She realizes it too, and whispers, "Shit" in embarrassment. A small sigh comes from out of the crib by the window, and the light bulb goes off in your head as your thoughts begin to shake themselves out. You had forgotten all about Julianne. Of course, she has been there the whole time, asleep.

You sit up on the bed, pull on your jeans and fumble around for your shirt, completely unaware now of Rita. You move to stand over the crib as you pull you shirt on and look down at Julianne as she sleeps in the pale evening light coming through the window.

Yes, she is little, but she isn't actually bald. She has blond hair, like goose down, that stands up a little in the middle. Her nose is slightly up-turned and her cheeks are huge, like you remember Angela's being the first time you were introduced. "Look, Tim. Isn't she beautiful? Isn't she the prettiest baby?" And you'd believed it then because your mom had said so. Now, left to weigh this new evidence, you think that maybe this one could give Angela a run for her money.

A knock at the front door just about sends all three of you through the ceiling. Julianne startles and then dozes off again. Your gaze darts from her over to the corner of Rita's bed to be sure your shoes are where you thought you had left them. A second knock nearly sends Rita into hysterics. She sits up on her knees and shakes her clothes out of the quilt on the bed. She mumbles, "I got to get the door," and scurries out of the room like she welcomes the reprieve, pulling her dress over her head as she goes.

When she opens the door, it's Curly's voice you hear. "I was thinking maybe we'd try talking a little, Rita, but since Tim's car is here, I guess you're already busy for the night…"

Little Rita is just fucking full of surprises tonight. Instead of trying to apologize or act coy, as you would have expected her to do, she lays into Curly with everything she's got. Curly pulls no punches, and within seconds they're screaming at each other.

Julianne's eyes flutter open again. She starts to whimper and you pick her up, happy at least to be in the company of the only other sane person in the house. You walk out into the kitchen with her. Funny, you think, how easy this is: as the voices in the front room rise, you automatically begin to bounce her a little. You pat her back and she calms down. Her pudgy hands begin to explore your face and without thinking you curl your lips over your teeth and nibble on her fingers.

You and Julianne bounce lightly away from the screaming across the kitchen to the refrigerator, where you glance over the crap they've stuck up there with a variety of fruit and vegetable-shaped magnets. A bingo schedule, a grocery list, a church bulletin from a month ago advertising a guest speaker at Wednesday's Fellowship Meeting. His name is Randy Loan, and he is a BNDD agent from the Oklahoma City office. Agent Loan will be speaking on the scourge of amphetamines and marijuana currently plaguing Oklahoma's youth. He will answer questions from the congregation and provide resources to those with afflicted persons in their lives.

Shit. The feeling of realization grips your whole body so tightly that you can no longer feel Julianne poking her finger at the scar on your cheek. You walk out into the living room, into the heat of Rita and Curly's shouting match, as calmly as if you were interrupting their afternoon tea. "Come on, Curly. We're going…"

"What the…Hey, fuck you, Tim!" But one look from you stops him cold. He's mad as hell, and he may not be afraid of you anymore, but he knows the look that says something is very, very wrong.

You hand Julianne to Rita and say, "I see they've let you come back to church, Rita. Hear any stimulating sermons lately?" Her eyes grow wide with knowing and then narrow. You turn to set Curly on a course towards the door.

"Tim-" Rita says, and you turn back, but not to look at her. For a second you pause and then frown as you look at Julianne. It's pretty amazing, really. You've only ever held her for those few minutes, and already it hurts to know you're leaving her behind.


	6. Chapter 6

SE Hinton owns the Shepard Boys, bless her. Roger Miller wrote and recorded "King of the Road".

**A Multitude of Casualties, pt. 6**

_I may not always love you/ But long as there are stars above you/ You never need to doubt it/ I'll make you so sure about it/ God only knows what I'd be without you. – The Beach Boys, "God Only Knows"_

_I got the moon, I got the cheese/ I got the whole damn nation on their knees/ I got the rooster, I got the crow/ I got the ebb, I got the flow. – Tom Waits, "Big In Japan"_

So, I'm standing in the hall again above the hardware store. As if he as if he hasn't been busy enough banging the mother of my kid, my brother has to get one more little errand in before he calls it a night. We drove down here without speaking, but without hearing the blaring radio that he's using to try and cover up what I'm pretty sure ain't going to be fixed by ever louder doses of Bobby Fuller.

Down the hall, I don't hear Tim talking to or hitting the guy, but he's taking fucking forever. I'm thinking hard about just leaving. He can keep his ratty-ass car, and his dumb errands for Buck, and his secondhand broads, and he can damned-sure keep that baby. Yeah, fuck it, just go, I'm thinking when he finally comes towards me. He has strange look on his face. His jaw is set, brow is furrowed, and his eyes are wild and tired. "Let's go, Curly," he speaks to me for the first time since we left Rita's house.

"What, Tim? What's going on?" I feel sick now, and pissed off on top of it. I hate him for being able to control me with just a look like that.

"Just go, fucker," he says and tugs on my sleeve- not his customary sheep dog shove, but more like a child's desperate tug- as he passes me on his way down the stairs. Instead, I just stand there. When he reaches the bottom of the stairs, too far down to stop me, I turn and take off back down the hall to the door that Tim has left wide open.

There's a smell that I can't quite place: burnt foil, I know that, but something else sort of sweet and musty at the same time. The old guy's room ain't exactly tidy, he's into smack and not speed after all, and it takes me a second or two to even find him amongst all of the crap he's got laying around. He has slumped over in a chair by the only window in the room. The belt he used to tie off is slack around his left arm, but his stiffened right hand clutches the needle like a claw. His eyes remain open, like it was some fascinating piece of blank space on the floor that blew his mind. I stand perfectly still for a minute, waiting in vain for him to blink. "Damnit," I finally say aloud to no one.

In the glow from the streetlamp outside, two unopened foil packets twinkle on the table in front of him. I'm sure I've seen that in a movie somewhere- were they jewels or a magic sword or some shit like that? They sparkle, and the hero reaches out to take them. And then what happens to him? I can't remember. I take a step forward and snatch them up, not completely convinced that the old fuck won't grab my wrist and shout, "Put those back, you little prick!" As soon as I've done it, in fact, I run like hell for the door. I pocket the smack once I get to the hall and head back to Tim.

He is sitting at the bottom of the stairs, twirling an unlit cigarette between his fingers. I sit down next to him and hand him my lighter. He lights up, takes a couple of drags, and hands the cigarette over to me. He keeps the lighter, though, flicking it on and off until I start thinking it's going to explode in his hand.

"I guess he don't have to pay up then," I say finally.

"I guess not."

"You ever seen a dead guy before?"

"Not like that. Remember Uncle Billy's funeral?" I shake my head and he continues, "Just then. Ma and Aunt Nancy were bitching the whole time about how dolled up he was and how it didn't look like him."

It surprises me a little that Tim could have gotten to be Tim without having seen more dead people. Christ knows he's been responsible for scaring enough people near to death. He's seen all of us guys beat up pretty bad before. Once, Eddie Ashton got beat so bad with a pipe, we only recognized him by his shoes when we found him. Still, for all the things people say about the Shepard gang, I guess that's one line we have yet to cross. None of us has killed anyone yet. At least not when I've been around.

"What do we do now then?" I ask.

Tim shrugs and hands my lighter back. "Fuck if I know. If Buck was even a little bit of a hard-ass, I'd go back and look around up there for something to pawn off and close the debt. Probably the only thing up that's worth anything is the smack he didn't shoot yet, and with Rita's little friend poking around, we don't need to be walking around with that shit in our pockets."

Damnit. I hate that he's already thought of it, and discarded the idea. The cop had never even crossed my mind. Still, I decide that I'm willing to roll them dice. I don't even know what a couple of hits are worth, but I'm sure I can find someone who does. Now I'm a business man, not just some dumbass throwing eggs off the roof of the post office.

"Damn, Tim," I whine a little, and change the subject. "What the hell was Rita thinking?"

"One crazy person at a time, Curly. That's about all I can handle right now. Let me think this shit through first."

And he's done it again: completely railroaded my emotions, except I'm feeling better now because he's calling Rita crazy. At least I know it's her he's writing off and not me. We finish the cigarette, stand up together, and step out onto the sidewalk. It must be almost midnight. I'm hungry, and I hope to shit we can go somewhere and eat. The moon is high and working its way around to the west side of the building. I wonder how long before the old guy upstairs starts to go off, and the thought makes me quicken my pace in case it's sooner rather than later.

Tim and I spot the plainclothes fucker at the same time. He's leaning on his car, which is parked in front of Tim's car at the end of the block. He's already made us, or we could have run. We know every back alley, every abandoned building, "every lock that ain't locked when no one's around…", but he's already started towards us and is quickly closing the distance between us and him. Damn. Nothing to do but keep walking tall and whistling Dixie.

My fingers fumble with the foil packets in my pocket, and I say "Tim…" very softly.

"Just keep walking, Curly."

"Tim, I'm holding. I took the shit out of that old guy's room. I was going to sell it…"

He hisses something very quietly; I can't even make it out. Maybe the superstitious Catholic fucker whispered a little prayer, or maybe he's just calling me a shithead again. He spits out of the corner of his mouth, and then fishes a cigarette out of his shirt pocket, pats his jeans pockets for a lighter we both know he never has, and says to me, "Give me your lighter, Curly. Hand it off to me with your lighter."

"Tim, I'm sorry. This is all my fault."

I'm afraid to turn my head to look directly at him, but I'm sure I catch him smiling out of the corner of my eye. "Yeah, sure is," he says. "Now, give me a light, Curly."

He stops and turns his back against a breeze that neither of us actually feels. I palm him the lighter and the two hits, and he lights up. We turn and continue walking towards the car and the plainclothes cop. Tim hands me back my lighter.

When I was in the JDC, screwing around with that Zen garden, the social worker would tell me over and over to "let go and just be in the garden. You don't have to make it into anything, Charles. It will make itself. You're over-thinking it. No thoughts, just actions." I always thought that was the funniest fucking thing to say to a guy who had spent all of his fifteen years being told, "Curly, pull your head out of your ass! Curly, think before you open your big mouth! Curly, don't you ever think before you do anything?" Right now, I'm trying so hard, and I can't stop thinking. The thoughts are racing through my head: _Tim's eighteen not fifteen. That's heroin, not weed. If he gets searched, he's out of here. What does he already have on his adult record? Stolen car? Or was that as a juvenile? Definitely, a couple of assaults. Maybe an illegal firearm. Speeding tickets. Disturbing the peace. Probably with that car…why can't he keep that fucking car together? Did Mrs. Mulroney call the cops when he threw a rock at her cat? No, wait that was me. What if I take it back? What if I tell him to give the dope back to me? Yeah, I'll go down, but I'll just go back to JDC. Fuck, I don't want to go back there. The night that kid from Ada hanged himself in the showers… I'd been shooting baskets with him all afternoon, I thought we were buddies, and everything seemed fine. When I saw those swinging feet, fuck, I knew I was so far in over my head. I don't want to go back. I want to stay here. Where I'm safe. With Tim. I'm safe with Tim._

I'm safe with Tim.

I look over to him, and I'm convinced he's done it. Whatever I said before, about him never being able to clear his head, it was bullshit. Tim is free. Tim is pure action without thought, and this half-lit street in ugly old Tulsa is his garden. He's kicking the fucking sand with his feet as he goes. The landscape reshapes itself beneath him. That cop is nothing but a smooth, polished rock for him to step over or around.

The cop is in front of us, and we stop. "Charles Shepard?" He says to me this time, and reaches into his back pocket.

"Yeah?" I say. I'm sweating balls, and I'd about kill to grab that cigarette away from Tim.

The cop flips open his wallet and shows me a badge. "Charles Shepard, my name is Agent Loan. I'm with the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs. I understand you are on probation with Tulsa County?"

"Yeah."

"It is also my understanding that the conditions of your probation mandate that you must submit to search in the event that we have cause to believe you are in the possession of narcotics."

I hook my thumbs into my belt loops and cock my head to the side a little. Before I got locked up, it seemed like all the cops were taller. I was a scrawny little kid running from giants. I'm two inches taller than when I went in, taller than Tim now even, and this BNDD asshole is no longer a cat to my mouse. I can look him in the eye, cat to cat, and I do. "So, do we have such an event, then?"

Agent Loan looks a little taken aback. I guess I sounds a lot cooler than I feel. He exhales heavily through his nose. "We have had an anonymous tip that you have been purchasing and using marijuana since your release from the juvenile detention center. So, yes, we have an event. Can I have you stand against the wall, please? Arms above your head…"

Yeah, buddy. I know the drill. Hell, I came out of the womb this way. I step over to the wall, and catch Tim's eye. That bastard has to turn away to keep from laughing. I'm Marlon Fucking Brando here, and Tim's having a giggling fit. He flips the cigarette away down the alley. I see my diamonds glint briefly in the moonlight and then disappear. "You know, no one calls him Charles," Tim says. "If you're going to get all cozy with him, you might as well call him Curly like everyone else."

Agent Loan smacks his hands down the length of my arms and over my chest. Without ever taking his eyes off of me, he says, "And you must be Tim Shepard."

"Must be."

"Would you like to be next, son?"

"Oh, I'd love to, but I think you'd have to contact my lawyer first. I've recently graduated to adult court. I have rights now, so I'm told."

Agent Loan squats to pat down my legs. "Shoes off?" I ask him.

"No, but you can empty your pockets out."

I turn back around to face him and display the contents of my jeans pockets: my lighter, a comb, my near-empty wallet, and an also near-empty pack of gum. Tim leans in on his toes to catch a look. "Damn, Curly," he says. "You're some kind of model citizen."

In that moment, I am sure Agent Loan is going to smack Tim upside the head. Tim says to him, "What is the street value of Juicy Fruit these days? That's what this is all about, ain't it? Did that little Rita McGregor broad call you all in a titter that Curly was going to expose her baby to gum? That shit'd be a nightmare if it was to get caught in her hair."

Now I got to throw in my two cents: "I think peanut butter takes care of that, Tim."

"I don't know, kid," He shakes his head. "Juicy Fruit is some hard shit. It's those stripes, I think. I'm not sure peanut butter would do the trick."

That about does it for Agent Loan. He doesn't raise his voice, but he's no longer reciting from some cop handbook, and his vocabulary has taken a turn. "Both of you shut the fuck up. I have my eye on you. Both of you little sons of bitches. Tim, you can be sure I'll be putting in a call to your parole officer."

"To be sure," Tim says. "Are we free to go, man? We got business to attend to."

Agent Loan sniffs. "I'm sure you're very busy young men. Yes, you're free to go."

Tim and I step up to the car, me silently praying the damned thing starts. Once inside, Tim pops the lighter and rolls down the window. He doesn't signal, and cuts off Agent Loan as he pulls out on the street. We drive for a few blocks in silence. Agent Loan trails us for a couple, and then turns up a side street. The lighter pops out and I jump. I know I'm not nearly out of the hole yet.

"So," I ask him as he lights a cigarette, sucks about half of it down to ash, and then hands it over to me. "Are we coming to the part where you kick the crap out of me?"

"More like the part where you tell me you love me more than your miserable, stupid sideshow of a life itself, and you will never disobey me ever again."

"Fuck off, Tim." _God, I love you, Tim._ "Man, I'm hungry. Can we get something to eat?"

"How can you be hungry, shithead? Christ, I'm about ready to puke." He shakes his head at me. "Yeah, I'll get you something. Jesus. And then you can sit there and eat while I go to the can and beat my head against the wall for a while."

One of the thousand frowns has returned, and I can't tell if he's bullshitting me or not. I mean, what does that mean? That Tim Shepard was scared? If Tim is scared, then I damn-sure should be, too, and yet I'm not. I feel like a man who has just escaped the storm and gotten another lease on life. Tim's talking like we've leased the farm with an option to buy. It ain't like that, man. The sun's gone down again, and we're going to disappear into the dark. In the morning, we'll get up and do it all again.

Hell, we might still be up when morning comes. At the end of the street, across the railroad tracks, I can see the Miller sign flickering in the window of Buck's place. Eddie's Mercury is parked outside. I can kick that fucker's ass at pool any day of the week. I may have lost my diamonds to the night, but I got a good feeling I can at least pull down enough from Eddie to buy my brother a beer.

_All right, y'all, fire at will. Any reviews and scathing criticisms are greatly appreciated. I have the outlines in my head for a couple more Shepard adventures. I'm sure that karma has plenty in store for dear Curly._ -WR


End file.
